Louis Barajas on Vista L.A.

Now how Latinos are making big moves in business and finance. Meet the expert who says he's helping the community achieve financial greatness.

Welcome to Vista LA from historic Lincoln park, right here in East LA, which dates back to 1901. Hi there, I'm Danny Romero. Today's show is all about economic empowerment. First, we're introducing you to Luis Barajas, who began educating himself for his career while he was a young boy working for his family's wrought iron business right here in east la. Now, years later, he's a well established financial expert teaching Latinos how to achieve what he calls financial self esteem.

Your highest purpose is investing back into yourself.

The firm Luis Barajas wealth and Business Planning in Santa Fe Springs specializes in helping the Latino community with their finances.

We give them an environment which allows them to be vulnerable and share their dreams. And sometimes their dreams are not living in multi million dollar homes or driving Bentleys. You know, their dreams are having health insurance and sending their kids to school and buying a home. Or clients come to me and they want to put money away and they're in heavy debt, you know, but they're making 8 bucks an hour, 9 bucks an hour. 11 immigrants making $10 an hour. So we sit down with them and we sometimes take that money instead of invest it into an Iraq. We invested in helping them get job skills that they can take themselves from earning $10 an hour to $20 an hour. That'll change their lives more, that'll leverage. And then at that point they start listening to me about an IRA and putting money away. We're talking about people in their 40s and 50s, men and women, Latinos, immigrants, working two or three jobs just to survive. And when you work part time, minimum jobs, there is no health insurance. Big national crisis, no retirement plans, huge national crisis.

Luis Baragas can relate to his clients financial sacrifices and struggles. Born in East Los Angeles to Mexican immigrant parents, the eldest of three siblings, Luis began working at 13 years old by helping his dad run the family business.

My mom and dad raised me in Boyle Heights. You know, my dad wanted more for his family. My dad was a really hard working man. He's seven years old, he's still alive. I was the one helping my dad do his tax return, read contracts, be his translator. He started doing these big fences for people who were very wealthy. And I would see people driving with a Mercedes or a BMW, lived in nice homes, and I would ask my dad, dad, what do they do? And he goes, I guess they go to college.

Lewis earned his Bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MBA from Claremont Graduate School.

I got involved in financial planning, doing consulting and building a financial planning practice.

His career in the financial industry was going well until 1991 when when Lewis was hit by the sudden loss of his grandmother and his uncle.

I had that tragedy happen in my life, made me realize how many blessings I've had and I had to make a commitment to come and help this community. Since then we've been practicing what I call true financial planning. Non commission stuff, really giving advice and also helping people build their small businesses. Because most Latinos don't have the resources to move up in the corporate world. So they become entrepreneurs like my father was.

His financial company has become a great success within the Latino community. Louis also gives motivational speeches and is an author. His first book, the Latino Journey to Financial Greatness, has sold close to 100,000 copies.

Over 50% of Latinos are unbanked. People get their paychecks and where do they go? They go to the check cashing places, they charge them a fee. They're going deeper and deeper into a hole. Saving is a habit. You have to create that habit. You change your mindset. Bottom line, this is really simple. By caring.

He strongly believes that instead of focusing on the buying power of Latinos, the focus should be on the power of saving.

How does a community become powerful? It's the investment power, it's the savings power. We need to be more future based. That's what I want for our clients now. If they've got life insurance, emergency reserves, they've got a good job, they're investing in their skills, they have the health insurance and a trust and they're putting money in the retirement plan. All said and done, you know, you don't need me.

One of Lewis areas of expertise is offering advice to married couples. He finds that when couples get married, problems with money can arise. Add children to the picture, bringing new costs and they feel overwhelmed. Laura and Marty Romero, no relation to me, might represent a typical family in la. They find themselves dipping into their savings and using their credit cards more often just to pay everyday expenses. They sat down with Lewis to get some help.

To avoid any more tension, the couple decided to seek the help of financial planner Luis Baragas to get them back on track.

I think we're open to ask the question of how to improve ourselves and how to be better from what we bring into our expenses. We have around $2,000 a month to spend and then two weeks later we're down to $274,000.

Out of $2,000, there's only $274 left.

We need some help in kind of figuring it out.

Tell me about what happened on Mother's Day.

I got a Dodger jacket that I really wanted. I felt guilty because I felt like, well, we only had 274. I really don't need the Dodger jacket.

Right.

I wanted to return it.

We didn't think about it proactively. It was reactively. I think what happens. If we would have thought about that in that $2,000 budget, then we would have had the Mother's Day. We would have spent money a little differently.

This process, I think, without a middle person, could be volatile. If I brought it up, it might be taken a different way if I said what you just said. And then she says, I only have that much to buy for my mom.

You purchase things that you shouldn't have. Now that we've got two weeks left, you may have to start using your credit card to put some essentials on there.

Yes.

Okay.

Your love for each other is not predicated on how much you spend on each other. Really focus for the rest of the month is not to spend things on just wants. We're going to focus on the needs.

I want our relationship to be very healthy. I think that is part of our relationship. Our relationship and growing with each other is having that type of perspective on money.

If you'd like to hear more about Lewis Barrajas's story and his philosophies about money and debt, go to the Vista LA page at abc7com.